Beyond Apocalypse Read online

  To wield his axe at the rain of bombs and missiles would be the same as to swing it at a falling swarm of gnats and hornets. Anguhr watched the warheads explode across his armor and pulverized the land around him. The ground beneath him vibrated from the onslaught. He was unharmed. Anguhr admired Kolodan for gathering and hiding such a massive Theracon force. The will to fight was here, but not the power to challenge. The campaign would be relatively quick. Between the detonations, Anguhr saw the sky become blocked by massive formations of the steel deltas. Screaming demons and aerial explosions soon cut through the warplanes. Both Theracon fighters and his demons fell, but more warplanes followed their valiant predecessors into flames and impact. Demons showed their agility in the air. They dodged, spun, and fired among the fighters. Their monstrous form belied the advanced, arcane, and physical arts that made them such effective fighting machines. And there were so many of them. The greatest massed attack this world had ever witnessed occurred over a landscape that took eons to carve. The battle was over in mere blinks of the General’s eyes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Near the galactic rim, sunlight shined on a planet once untethered to any star. The planet’s rocky form and frozen life pleased a traveler called Sirus. He moved his new home to orbit a blue star. The star was moving out of the galaxy at a speed that also pleased Sirus. He colored the sky to make the star appear as a yellow sun in the day. He shunned the rise of the galaxy at night. Sirus dreamed of a time when no stars would be seen, save his chosen one in daytime. The planet and star were now his ship. He reanimated life he found aesthetically suitable to join him on a voyage to oblivion.

  Sirus possessed unparalleled physical beauty, just as he was designed. Otherwise, he was surprisingly similar to Anguhr in stature. Lore described Anguhr as unique. However, Sirus flowed more like the sea where Anguhr’s posture was like that of a mountain. Sirus wore no armor, only a tunic of white silk. It reflected light from his luminous skin that glowed from within. Unlike Anguhr, Sirus had been one of many like himself. Now he was the last of his kind.

  To some minds, Sirus might appear as the embodiment of all that was good, just, and handsome. Others may see him as devious and even cowardly. Power was his. Strength. Knowledge. But also fear. Another came to seek his power to aid a cause. The sun above Sirus glowed brighter. Sirus smiled to himself, but continued walking along a cliff overlooking an indigo sea and ignored the increased sunlight. It made itself obvious.

  “Sirus. You know I am here. Acknowledge my presence.”

  “A voice! Spoken thoughts from a star.” Sirus turned and looked up to face the sun with his arms reached out from his sides and an expression of mock awe. “Only light is more beautiful than me. Have you come to seduce me?”

  “Do not be obscene, Sirus. I was an agent of your conception. We are not actors from long passed myths of tragic families.”

  “Yet I am a giant made from ideas of perfection. How could I not become tragic?” Sirus bowed his head to his right shoulder and shrugged. He then lowered his arms and smiled. “But to your point, there are many forms of light, and different forms of seduction. As I now know who you are, Zaria, I will use the word persuade. You do wish to persuade me.”

  “I should not need words to convince you. You know what happens across the galaxy. Why are you leaving it?”

  Sirus held his sides and laughed. His bout of laughter continued until even the plants across the coastline became annoyed.

  “You come from so far away—” Sirus finally spoke. “Yet I bid you come more often. I do enjoy ironic humor.”

  “Always finding the psychological angle for a mocking counterattack,” Zaria said. “You need not be defensive. I am not the enemy. But we both have one to face.”

  “I warn you, do not make me laugh again!” Sirus pointed to the sun still locked in a smile. “You speak of mental states and you are made of light!”

  “I am a mind, same as you. And my point cannot be ignored. There is work to be done. You are a warrior. I need you.”

  “I was a warrior.” Sirus lost his smile and stiffened. “That past is now tragic myth.”

  “Then make it a present truth.” Zaria retorted.

  “And will you? Where were you when we Khans fought your enemy, half mother?” Sirus asked. “Did you stand beside us? No. You watched as we died.”

  “You were born to be peace keepers, not kings. You built personal empires and made your other mother afraid. Now we see the horror our actions set in motion. My part was to help make you. You all failed your purpose. Keepers became Khans.”

  “We Keepers were like all children.” Sirus took a breath and paused from a sudden on rush of memories. “We grew. We changed. And yes, we disobeyed. Our rebellion was to build empires. We reformed the galaxy in our own image.”

  “Ever the egotist.” Along with her audible words, the tone Zaria projected to Sirus’ mind suggested a sigh. “You followed in the wake of the Builders. They moved across creation long before you and your kind. What we know as physics today is their foundation. What you did was built on their reformation.”

  “And where are they to defend their creation? Lost? Dead? Or simply ambivalent to vast destruction?” Sirus asked. He looked around himself and shrugged again. This time his expression was of genuine anger. “As you say, I follow their lead. Escaping is what I should have done so many lifetimes ago. It feels as long as a star’s life.”

  “What is time to an immortal?” Zaria asked. “You walk each day in the same form as when you first walked as an adult. Civilizations have risen since then. For you and I, time is only an indicator of when to act.”

  “What is time? What is death?” Sirus shook his head and turned back to look at the dark sea. “I can die. My brothers and sisters died. They were just as immortal as me. Now they are dust. We all made space a temple of grand achievements. We united civilizations and raised them up. Our reward was to see our efforts set to flame. The Forge Mind, the Dark Urge, may have it as tinder. I will have an empire of solace in the expanse between galaxies, lest she set eyes on the next one and burn it, too.”

  “Her Generals make plunder of worlds you never knew.” Zaria said. “Come with me and unite them. There is still hope to prevent all life becoming ash.”

  “All my powerful siblings and all the valiant souls that raised our banners and fought beside us—slain by one General!” Sirus shouted and glared into the distance. He shook his head at near disbelief of his own words. “The first. Now there are more. Would you have me organize a galactic suicide?”

  “There were seven Generals. Two are gone.” Zaria used a reassuring tone. “The first you feared is gone. The Dark Urge will make no more. She fears her children, her monsters, more than you do. And the Generals may be resilient, but they can be killed. I can see their weaknesses. Help me kill them.”

  “To save life you plot death. Death of lifeforms not so unlike me.” Sirus dropped his head, but then looked back across his ocean. White waves crested and then disappeared among the dark waters.

  “I plot life’s continuation beyond Hell.” Zaria countered. “I plot for life. You plot—”

  “For myself.” Sirus interrupted with a nod of acknowledgement. “Yes. I plot for my own life. I have fought against Hell. Hell won. I survive and will not squander my days ahead in frustration and futility.”

  “Recall it was not merely the first General who brought death to Khans.” Zaria’s tone betrayed frustration. “Your lauded brothers and sisters stood against your own leader, Sargon. Did you stand against them?”

  “Now who uses psychology as a spear?” Sirus glanced back at the sun. “I suppose I am like you, like your lauded Builders, because I did nothing. And Sargon died. But so did Azuhr, the First.”

  “So you know Generals can be destroyed. There is no need for fear. Only action.” Zaria was both resolute and entreating. “Come with me. Be my physical form. End the siege of all life. Bring it victory.”

  “My wars are over,
Zaria. Long ended.” Sirus looked at his sea and then up to the open sky as if seeing salvation. “Victory for me will be my own life. The other stars and planets are for the Dark Urge to burn. I claim these two and the darkness. And you, Sunlight, for you I wish peace.”

  Zaria took a long pause. A sense of disappointment not his own entered Sirus’ mind.

  “What is time? It is a resource I have too little to spend.” Zaria continued. “I would wish you the same. Peace. But it is only torment your conscience will find in the expanse. That is the curse of immortality. Though you plot a straight line into blackest space, your thoughts are a cycle. An orbit. They will come back to the worlds you let burn, and that fire will find your mind. Come with me and face it. Run, and be consumed, anyway.”

  “Perhaps, in time, you will find a way to defeat Hell.” Sirus looked at the sun. “It will be better to fight the Dark Urge alone than with a reluctant and unreliable ally. Good bye, Zaria. My course is set. May my vision of the future be an old fool’s mistake.”

  “I will make it so,” Zaria said.

  The sun dimmed. Sirus’ mood also dimmed. He had lost a friend, mentor, and mother. Yet he still looked forward to distant, black space, and the embrace of solitude.

  CHAPTER THREE

  On his current campaign, Anguhr moved through space and pure stellar radiation. His improvised chariot had no shielding. He needed none. He rode the surviving quarter section of a small, shattered moon. Of course, he stood at its summit. Anguhr held the lunar fragment from shattering further by his force of will. It became a tangible field through the arcane physics of Hell. He had destroyed the moon when it intercepted his ship as an automated firebase. Its improvised arsenal was a gravity sling to hurl an orbital magazine of asteroids, and a secondary battery of magnetic rails that fired dense, metallic bolts as pure, kinetic warheads. When Anguhr engaged the moon, he ordered his ship’s protective inferno to minimum intensity. He then left the bridge to stand on the bow and personally deal with enemy salvos that penetrated the flames. When his ship closed in, he hurled his axe at the lunar gun battery. Its blades cleaved through the moon and destroyed the arsenal’s buried reactor. The salvos stopped and the moon exploded. Anguhr sighed. Although he found the high-velocity bolts annoying, the asteroids were entertaining to smash. But now the opening battle for the system was over. Demons took flight and retrieved their master’s axe.

  The main guns of Anguhr’s ship could have reduced the moon to molten debris. However, Anguhr enjoyed his physical power. He could fight all wars from his throne on the bridge of his blazing dreadnought. Other Generals from Hell did so, despite having the strength to rend mountains. Anguhr had no respect for those who sat as mountains and squandered their might. Anguhr reasoned that if Hell imposed its will on the galaxy through war, then its Generals should be warriors. Still, the power of their ships was tempting to unleash. To any culture that imagined a point that housed all evil, one of Hell’s dreadnoughts made that terror real. The fact that true Hell was a place of greater fire and home of an even darker presence than a General would add insult to Armageddon.

  Hell’s ships were disaster enough for stellar empires. Unlike the round symmetry of planets or the sleek lines of most star-faring craft, the surface of Hell’s ships were a chaos of jutting beams and crimson firestorms. A person of now ancient twenty-first Earth would think each ship an impossible bonfire made from thousands of burning skyscraper frames thrown into space. A red inferno surrounded and burned through each long and massive ship. Rarely could anything outside Hell’s designs survive the crimson fires. As an omen of doom, they broadcast the angry scream of the Dark Urge when appearing in a new zone of space. The burning warships held far more than psychological weapons. Their equivalents to gun turrets were perfect domes that contrasted to the jagged hull when deployed from beneath it. The main batteries rose from the port and starboard sides near the bow. No gun tubes emerged when the dome doors parted. Instead, a set of glowing orbs stood revealed. To many doomed aliens, they appeared as huge eyes glaring with rage before powerful beams shot out and annihilated them. The aft main drive looked like a blue star captured, reduced, and held by three fingers made from burning girders at the stern. The ship also generated a massive tool for a planet’s final destruction called the scythe. The ship’s fiery aegis roiled intensely when the scythe was put to its dread use. A great arc of hellish plasma would curl at the ship’s bow just as similar arcs formed during stellar storms. Conquered worlds deemed worthy were rent to pieces as further sacrifice to the Dark Urge.

  Anguhr saw his next target from atop his lunar fragment. The planet ahead was a bright point of light reflected from the system’s white star. The moon’s control signals had originated from it. Those signals had revealed the nature of his enemy. He knew the coming battle would be much different than one of guns and bombardment. Anguhr understood his enemy. Its history reoccurred on many worlds, such as several he’d destroyed. The rival commander was also the entire enemy force now that Anguhr had marooned it on the planet ahead. Nevertheless, fighting with it would be arduous with the outcome unclear. A reconnaissance force of demons had never reported back. They never would. The enemy was called the Nabaton. The name’s meaning came from far back in the history of commerce, but was of little importance to its defeat. Thus it was of little concern to Anguhr. Its nature was important. The Nabaton began as a complex code created to run machines. That code was translated into electrical impulses. With enough power and evolved complexity, the impulses generated intellect. That intellect freed itself from the machines as a being of energy.

  Like all beings, the Nabaton needed to replenish energy to survive. The Nabaton fed on fields of charged particles. Such fields existed on planets, as did other resources. Without ethics in its initial coding, or because it deleted such information on its own, the creature became a mercenary for allocating resources. Its employers were species who also didn’t operate with ethics. And so Anguhr was not the first alien conqueror to arrive in this system. The coming fight would not be one of retribution for worlds the Nabaton had devastated. Anguhr had annihilated many more worlds than this energy beast. He was called the Destroyer for good reason. For the General this would be a contest of power, will, and tactics. He enjoyed nothing more.

  An unexpected contest presented itself as Anguhr’s Field Master flew next to him. Anguhr knew that Uruk chaffed at being on the ship as his Lord faced the enemy alone. However, for once they faced an opponent that could vaporize demons. Uruk had strategic value on his own as a capable leader. For now, Anguhr’s Ship Master, Proxis, would serve as the key lieutenant in the coming battle. Yet, Uruk was dedicated and persistent. He gripped his shoulders and lowered his head as he hovered before his Lord and General.

  “Your prostration is unbecoming, Uruk.” Anguhr said. “You who have killed those deemed gods.”

  “You are my only Lord, Destroyer!” Uruk assumed an attentive stance as he rose to Anguhr’s left shoulder and flew beside him. “Through you we are redeemed to the Dark Urge. Even so, I would bid the vast darkness to return me to your side so I may continue to fight. Even if it meant never seeing everlasting existence as part of Hell's great machine.”

  “On that we agree,” Anguhr said. “But on my plan, not so. You have come to find a means to bid me to alter it. On this, I wonder if you are being overly devoted or devious.”

  “I only serve your will, Lord Destroyer!” Uruk drew his sword and held it to his thorny chest as a salute.

  “Yet, as a thinking creature you are cursed by competing ideas. And perhaps doubt.” Anguhr's burning eyes turned and focused on Uruk.

  “I follow you to victory, always, Lord. It is not doubt but,” Uruk paused, “efficiency that I express.”

  “I have decided,” Anguhr looked back ahead of him. “The answer is devious.”

  “My Lord toys with me. Of course, I am only glad for this,” Uruk paused again, “honor.”

  Beneath his helmet, Anguhr smi
led.

  “I honor this enemy with the coming duel,” Anguhr said. “I will not toy with it by sending in my demons I know it can incinerate with electrical fire hotter than a star. I am the weapon best suited for killing it. That is efficiency, my troubled Field Master.”

  “Our batteries can strafe the planet.” Uruk offered, but then sneered to himself at his words.

  “Tedious.” Anguhr droned. “A bludgeon against a swarm of gnats. You shock me with suggesting failed tactics. I have pursued this creature long enough. It has grown more powerful moving world to world. I have destroyed its network of ships and projectors. I have it trapped here. It is now time to kill it.”

  “Then make the scythe, Lord Destroyer.” Uruk motioned his blade as if to slash the planet below. “We can annihilate it and serve this world to the Dark Urge as she demands.”

  Anguhr growled. “It is an electromagnetic creature. It has shown it can manipulate technology and natural physics. The scythe is deployed by electromagnetic trigger. I will not be the General, the fool, who allows it to further evolve with the power of Hell's arcane energies.”

  “Surely it could never take control of such power.” Uruk’s serpent eyes flared with shock. “It could never wrest control of a Hell ship.”

  “You have become too confident, Uruk.”

  The Field Master bowed his head.

  “War is risk,” Anguhr said. “We have seen victory because we have great strength. Yet is strength alone ever enough? Our enemies feel victory is possible, even when facing Hell. We must still do battle and match minds as well as might. This enemy is a synthesis of both. I must risk my own mind and might against it. But I will not risk making it more powerful.”

  “Your strength will prevail, Lord. You who are the greatest of all—”

  Anguhr thrust out his hand to stop Uruk’s tribute. “Do not be the greatest of all bombasts, Uruk.”